Our leadership needs to step aside.

Our leadership needs to step aside. Nancy P, Chuck S, I love you, but if we’re going to progress we need fresh, new leadership. Even if it’s just for looks.

We can’t slide back into the party of east and west coast intellectualism. Our policies can and should be based in intellectualism, but we can’t market them as such. See the distinction?

We need a new, populist reframing of the DNC. Look to 1997 UK and New Labor as inspiration. And we can’t do this with current leadership because you’re visually tied to elite intellectualism.

Right now I read Al Franken and Sherrod Brown, amongst others, on the defensive. Nowhere are we playing offense. And it’s because of appearance. Do arguments against this new health care bill (higher premiums, lack of insurance options for millions) make sense? Of course they do. But nobody cares about that.

That’s all this is… appearance. If the election of 2016 doesn’t prove that nothing will. People in the middle of the country don’t want to be talked down to. They need inspiration.

We can get everything done if we re-frame it. We were lazy in letting ACA be called Obama Care. We focused on the nerdy aspects of it, but we didn’t pitch it (market) it correctly. Now we’re in danger of losing it simply because it’s got Obama’s name put to it. Somebody marketed the shit out of that and it sure as hell wasn’t the DNC.

We need fresh, inspiring leadership out of nowhere to reframe the arguments and get on the offensive. Now. Not after we loose more seats in 2018.